Israeli ban on women to be countered

Ramallah: A Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) will seek an Israeli court order to stop Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem from banning Palestinian women from entering Al Haram Al Sharif.

Haneen Zoabi has told the police that she will appeal against the arbitrary decision to deny Palestinian women access to the area.

“The ban on Palestinian women, though temporary, is an unprecedented and grave Israeli measure meant to be a punishment against women for their role in preventing colonists from entering Al Haram Al Sharif to pray and perform their rituals,” she said in a statement.

Since the end of the last week (the beginning of the Jewish festival of Sukkot), Al Haram Al Sharif has been the scene of fierce clashes between Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem and 1948 areas on the one hand and Jewish colonists who have gathered in their thousands to infiltrate Al Haram Al Sharif.

Large crowds of Palestinians were prevented from entering. Haneen stressed in her statement that women had been on the front line defending Al Haram Al Sharif and that Israeli attacks against women have dominated the scene.

She sent a letter to the Israeli Minister of Public Security Yitzhak Aharonovich highlighting the violations that the occupation’s police and Israeli Border Police had committed against Palestinian women. The letter rejected the restrictions on women’s entry to Al Haram Al Sharif and well as the suppression, repression and use of physical force against women.

“Not only women who wanted to reach Al Aqsa Mosque were denied access, but also those who wanted to go back to their homes in the Old City were also prevented and physically attacked and some of them arrested,” she said.

She added that the police attacked Diyala Ali and Asalah Khalaf (both in their mid twenties) of the Old City of Jerusalem when they attempted to enter the area to reach their homes. The two were later arrested and taken to unknown destinations and at the present time Israeli forces have not told the women’s families where they are.